


and tell him without fear, now

by brookethenerd



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bickering, Happy Ending, Love Confessions, Murray being Murray, Oblivious Reader, Oblivious Steve, Stranger Things 3, kinda canon divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:27:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21883735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brookethenerd/pseuds/brookethenerd
Summary: au in which Steve and the reader enlist Murray’s help with translating the Russian code, and he forces them to confront their feelings (translation: locks them in a room until they figure their stuff out)
Relationships: Steve Harrington/Reader
Comments: 1
Kudos: 69





	and tell him without fear, now

Murray Bauman was exactly as he’d been described: paranoid, snappy, and brutally honest. The paranoia wasn’t bothersome, and it was simple enough to fire back at his remarks, but the honesty was something else altogether. 

He was prickly and sarcastic and a borderline asshole, but he knew Russian and seeing as Robin had gotten stuck with translations, he was the only option. 

So, there you were, freezing your ass off with Steve Harrington, marching to the warehouse door and pounding on it. You hadn’t really expected him to open the door, _certainly_ hadn’t expected him to open it and shove a _shotgun_ in your face. 

Steve grabbed your wrist and roughly yanked you back behind him. Had you realized initially he was trying to shield you, you wouldn’t have socked him in the arm, but you weren’t known to be anything but blisteringly oblivious. 

Murray lowered the gun and cursed, lips settling into a frown. 

“Why must you children always show up unannounced at an address I did not give out?”

“We need your help,” Steve said. 

“We need a translator.” 

“Have you tried a dictionary?” Murray asked, arching a brow. 

“No, we figured we’d just drive out here without using a book we can get _five minutes_ from our houses,” you retorted. He seemed somewhat taken aback by the venom in your words - possibly, even a little impressed. Amused. He had just shoved the barrel of a gun into your face; he probably wasn’t expecting such confidence after his little show. 

But you were tired and desperate, and if you had to get right back into Steve’s car and drive three hours back to Hawkins, you might bash your head in. 

Murray sighed and waved a hand dismissively. 

“I’m guessing you won’t take no for an answer.”

“That would be correct,” Steve said. Murray tucked the gun into a bucket beside his door. He moved inside, an unspoken invitation, and you and Steve followed him. He tugged the metal door shut behind you and went to work re-locking it; it was somewhat excessive, but you weren’t about to make another snide comment so close to the door. You needed his help, and he had the means with which to send you back out into the cold. So you sealed your lips, swallowed your remarks, and let him lead you into his living room/hermit’s den. 

* * *

“Play it again,” Murray instructed, leaning forward. You and Steve were sat across from him on a couch, Murray settled into an armchair across the coffee table. 

“ _Seriously_? Again? Aren’t you supposed to be good at this?” You asked. 

“Oh, _I’m sorry_ , are my translation services not up to par?” Murray quipped. “Is there another Russian translator you’d like to go see? Oh, wait. _That’s right_. There’s not.”

“Has anyone ever told you you’re quite prickly?” 

“That’s a nice way of putting it,” Steve said. 

“If you dragged me all the way out here for nothing, Steve, I swear to god.” After close to two hours of translating, you were at your wits end with both Murray and Steve. 

“Feel free to walk back,” Steve retorted. 

“Maybe I will. I’d rather freeze to death than sit here any longer.” 

“I’ll make sure to pick up your frozen body on the way home.”

“Not even my corpse could handle two more hours in that fucking car. I mean, it’s Indiana in the summer, you _know_ it’s going to be cold at night, and yet, you still haven’t fixed the heater.” 

“The heater that you broke by blasting it all hours, you mean?”

“You do _not_ get to blame that on me-”

“Who else should I blame it on?”

“If you’d just wear a jacket like I said-”

“The jacket you dumped a vat of melted fudge on at work, you mean?”

“ _Jeezus_ , I said I was sorry-”

“Enough! Enough!” Murray exclaimed, smacking his palm down on the table and making you and Steve flinch, effectively ending the argument. “I have had it up to here with you teenagers coming in here, dragging your sexual tension with you! There is a _reason_ I live alone, you know!” 

“And I figured it was because you just couldn’t get a date,” you snapped. 

“Sexual tension? You’re-” Steve started, only for Murray to cut him off. He stood quickly and reached down to pause the recording, clasping his hands together. 

“You know what? I think I’ve got another translation dictionary in the back room. Maybe that’ll help with my inferior translating services! You two,” he jerked a chin at you both, and his tone left no room for argument, “Up now. Follow me.”

He started down the hallway past his kitchen, and you exchanged a look with Steve before you hopped up to follow him. He led you into what seemed to double as a spare bedroom and a hoarder’s suite, a foldout bed against one wall, newspapers, and other knick-knacks stacked along with the others. As soon as you and Steve crossed the threshold, Murray spun on his heels and stepped back into the hallway, slamming the door on you both. 

You didn’t realize what was happening until the locks clicked outside the door. 

“He didn’t just…” Steve said, mouth agape. 

“Oh, he did.” You slammed your fists against the door, the wood rattling. “Open the _fucking_ door! Now!” You kept pounding, and Steve joined in. 

“You can’t lock us in here!” He exclaimed. 

“I think he can, actually, seeing as we’re _currently locked in here_.”

“Are you really mad at me right now?”

“You’re the idiot that dragged us out here!”

Steve turned to face you, throwing his hands up. 

“You asked to come!”

“Because I couldn’t let you run off to see some lunatic by yourself! Trust me, I regret it!”

“I can take care of myself,” Steve said, hands on his hips, “I’m not some kid you need to babysit!”

“Tell that to your three concussions!”

“I didn’t ask you to look out for me!”

“Well, someone has to!”

“For the love of God, both of you, shut the hell up!” Murray yelled. You and Steve huffed and went quiet, stepping away from each other. “I am not opening this door until you two have figured out what anyone who comes within a mile of you can see!”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Steve asked. 

“Great. He’s nuts. Absolutely nuts.” 

“I don’t want to hear another word unless it’s a declaration of feelings,” Murray said. 

“What _feelings_?” You asked. Murray didn’t reply, and at the sound of his footsteps carrying back down the hall, you turned to Steve. “What the hell is he talking about?”

“Hell if I know,” Steve said, deserting his post at the door and crossing to the bed, flopping on his back and tossing an arm across his face. 

“You’re just going to sit there? While this lunatic has us locked in his room?”

“Unless you have a lock pick in your pocket, yes.”

Anger boiled hot inside you, and you resisted the urge to stamp your foot like a child. Instead of throwing a tantrum, you moved to a desk stacked with envelopes, shoving them onto the ground and hopping up onto it. 

For a full five minutes, you both stewed in your frustration. It was tangible, a thickness in the air that slipped around you and tightened like a noose, making it impossible to sit in any longer. 

“I don’t think you’re an idiot, and I don’t think you need a babysitter,” you said. “I just don’t want you to get hurt again. And…I _am_ sorry about fucking up the heat in your car.”

Steve removed his arm from across his face and sat up, brows pulling together. He pressed his lips together for a beat and said, “I’m sorry for dragging you out here. I knew he was…crazy, but I didn’t realize how crazy.” 

You snorted a laugh. “I don’t think he’s crazy. He’s …eccentric.”

“You love to argue, don’t you?”

“Only with you.”

His lips quirked up for a beat, before settling back into a thin line. 

“Well, either way, I’m sorry. I should have left you out of it.”

“I’m glad you didn’t.”

“So, now you’re _glad_ you’re locked in this eccentric dude’s spare room?”

“Oh, absolutely not. But if I have to be locked in an eccentric dude’s spare room with anyone, I’m glad it’s you.” 

“You are _not_.”

“Am too,” you retorted. 

“You can’t stand me. And you’re _happy_ to be stuck in a ten by ten room with me?”

“Do you really think I can’t stand you?” You asked, pushing off the desk and leaning against it. Steve raked a hand through his hair, nodding as if it was apparent. 

“You don’t exactly try to hide it.” 

“I don’t hate you. I l-” you stopped, realizing it just before you said it. I love you. The words bubbled up in your chest, bringing with them fear and something like excitement, followed by frustration, though not at Steve. At yourself, for taking so goddamn long to figure it out. 

“You what?” Steve asked, obviously not coming to the same conclusion as you just had. 

“Fuck.” You crossed your arms, shaking your head. “ _Fuck_.”

“Are you having, like, an aneurysm?” Steve asked. You scoffed. 

“I wish.”

His brows furrowed, confusion deepening. 

“Care to share with the class?”

You pinched the bridge of your nose, eyes fluttering shut. All of a sudden, Murray’s entrapment made a lot of sense. You opened your eyes and moved to drop onto the bed beside Steve, who was still completely and utterly lost. 

“Murray was right,” you said. 

“About?”

There wasn’t much else to do but be honest, as daring as that was. You were stuck in this room until someone said something; only Murray had realized something needed to be said. The eccentric, shotgun-wielding, Russian speaking lunatic who’d stuffed you in here. 

“I like you. And I think I have for a while. I just…didn’t know it or didn’t want to admit it. But I do.”

“You like me?” Steve asked. Your cheeks burned, and you prayed the blush wasn’t visible. You felt raw, stripped open, like you were holding your heart out. And the thing about giving your heart, the most dangerous, scary, treacherous thing, is that no one is obligated to take it. 

“Don’t make me repeat it,” you said, pointedly avoiding his gaze. Steve shifted in your peripheral vision, knee drawn up onto the bed, brushing your thigh. You did your best not to flinch away. 

“Then, I’ll say it.” You could barely hear him over the pounding of your heart, and his words only made it worse, the anxiety in your stomach coiling like a snake. 

“I’m in love with you,” he said, blowing your confession out of the fucking water. You frowned, all pretenses dropped in the aftermath of his words, and you turned to face him. 

“Don’t…don’t fuck with me, please.”

He laughed, like he wasn’t holding your heart in his hands with the power to crush it.

“Do you really think I’d screw with you? About that?”

“Maybe to get us out of here.”

“I mean, I _do_ want to get out of here, because I’ve had to pee for like an hour,” he said, and averted his gaze, a hand slipping behind his neck, “I also love you.”

You laughed, despite all efforts to remain suave, and Steve’s lips quirked up, smile seeming to split the sky apart, relief filling his features. 

“You think we could have figured that out without getting locked in Murray Bauman’s spare room?”

“Doubt it,” Steve said. He reached out tentatively, a hand settling on your cheek. You leaned into his touch, skin alight everywhere his fingers brushed. “But, we did.”

“Took us long enough.”

“Guess we’ll have to make up for lost time,” he said, voice dropping low, the distance between you evaporating by the second. One minute you were inches apart, the next your noses brushed.

It was the ghost of a kiss, so soft and small you could have imagined it. You pulled back slightly, trying to think beyond the flames in your cheeks and the racing of your heart. You met Steve’s gaze, tongue dragging along your bottom lip, and Steve’s eyes darted down just for a moment before meeting yours again. His lips parted as if to speak, but you didn’t give him a chance before you kissed him back. 

This time, you felt it. Slow, careful, his mouth against yours. Soft mint and the sweet vanilla scent that seemed to hang around Scoops and the tickle of fallen waves of hair on your skin. You hadn’t realized how long you’d been waiting for this - wanting for it - until now, until you were sinking and melting and coming alive all at once. 

He gripped the hem of your shirt and gently tugged you closer, and you let your own hands make their way into his hair, winding into the soft curls. 

When you pulled away, Steve dipped his forehead against yours, and your heart thrummed as quick as a hummingbird’s in your chest. 

Neither of you noticed the door open until Murray spoke from the doorway. You jumped apart, breathing more heavily than you’d like to admit, and turned to find him with a smug grin. 

He arched a brow with all the attitude of a high school girl, and asked, “Now, was that so hard?” 


End file.
